Who Would Have Thought?
by Gahnem
Summary: The Marauder tales. Soon to be LilyJames, but for now, merely lovehate. And big band music soon to come, thanks to Remus.
1. Thunderstorms and Teddy Bears

"Remus! Remus!" whispered Sirius Black through the thick darkness of the boy's dorm room at midnight. The only illumination was an occasional flash of lightning. The soft tapping of raindrops on the windows had helped ease the boys to sleep. All the boys except Sirius, of course.  
  
"What do you want?" Remus groaned, rolling over to squint up at the blurry figure of Sirius. Thunder rolled, making the air quiver ever so slightly.  
  
"I don't like thunderstorms! I need comfort!" hissed Sirius. He shivered, standing on the cold marble floor with no socks on. He shifted his weight from side to side, trying to keep his teeth from chattering.  
  
"Go find comfort with James, Black! Honestly." Remus huffed, rolling over again to bury his pale face in the scarlet pillow.  
  
Sirius scurried over to James' bed, his feet thudding quietly across the dormitory. "James!" he said, trying to wake his best friend, though he already knew the answer.  
  
"Not a chance, you twisted, shaggy, maniac," James replied. He had a tendency to be grumpy when he was so rudely awoken.  
  
Sirius groaned and padded across the room once more to tap Peter on the forehead. "Pete!" he said quietly.  
  
Peter gave a large snore and rolled over. "Huh?"  
  
"Real intelligent," James commented.  
  
"Pete, your mum's calling you!" Sirius lied.  
  
"Why, though?" Peter whined. By this point, James and Remus had already sat up to watch as Sirius tried to find "comfort".  
  
"Dishes!" Remus mouthed.  
  
On the bed farthest from Sirius' current position, James kneeled, waving his hands in the air and whispering the word "laundry!".  
  
"She, ummm.she wants you to put the laundry in the dishwasher." Sirius said, wincing upon realizing his blunder.  
  
Peter sighed groggily and asked, "Where is she, then?"  
  
Sirius and the other two boys had to stifle their laughter, as Sirius was bold enough to reply in a composed voice, "On the roof."  
  
Peter nodded and tumbled out of his bed almost tripping over his own foot. He then began to walk, resolved out to the common room where he could find an exit to the roof.  
  
"You told us you needed comfort!" Remus said crossly, watching Sirius glide happily into Peter's bed, snuggling down into the comforter and sheets.  
  
"Comfort in a midnight joke and some warm covers, maybe. Anyway, Peter still has a teddy bear and he'll never know the difference if I cuddle with it instead of him," Sirius retorted, childishly.  
  
Remus rolled his eyes muttering about repressed childhood issues. James snickered impishly and snuggled into his own covers.  
  
Sirius smiled contentedly as he sucked his thumb, saying past it, "Peter's as dumb as a brick."  
  
"You're not much better," Remus countered.  
  
Sirius grumbled and scratched his shaggy hair wildly.  
  
"Will you cut it out? You look like a dog!"  
  
"I should be a dog!"  
  
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"  
  
"If you all don't shut up, I'll make you shut up," said a voice from the door. All of the boys turned to look sharply at the figure standing in the door. The figure, ironically, didn't have much of a figure at all. It was a short, slightly pudgy girl with flaming hair and a temper just as fiery. Her hands were placed on her hips and her small foot tapped impatiently on the carpet outside the boys' dorm. A soft thudding, growing louder every second told them that the girl, Lily something-or-other, required an answer.  
  
"My God.. what is that hideous thing?" Sirius said.  
  
James groaned inwardly as the Lily girl searched about her, looking behind her.  
  
"I meant you entirely, freckle-face," Sirius said, laughing. Lily's mouth popped open and she ran off to her own dorm, the sound of a sob following close behind her.  
  
"That was rude, Sirius. She's only a first year," Remus informed him.  
  
"You're too soft, Lupin," Sirius told him gruffly. "Besides, we're second years. Not too far off. We got teased."  
  
"Not that harshly!" Remus retorted.  
  
"Guys, shut up before they all come in here and attack or something. Sirius, don't tease them. Remus, don't shelter them," James said forcefully, making them both stop bickering.  
  
James had a certain commanding force about him. It wasn't bossy or mean, but just problem-solving. With that, they all fell into private dream worlds. 


	2. Defending Hubert

"Hey, James!" Sirius called across the table at their third herbology lesson of the year. Sirius Black had a habit of being very loud. "Check it out!" He reached across the table to hand a piece of parchment to James.  
  
Taking the paper, James noticed that it had some kind of little doodle on it. He sighed and looked closer like a parent whose child may have done something remarkably beautiful if anybody could only figure out what it was. "What is it?" he asked.  
  
"Whaddaya think it is?" Sirius countered.  
  
"I dunno.." James responded unfocusing his eyes, thinking that perhaps it might help. "A pig with glasses?"  
  
"Exactly! It's YOU!" Sirius said, laughing.  
  
James rolled his eyes and folded the paper back up, zooming it over at Sirius with his wand. "You have way too much free time, Black," he responded.  
  
"Was that a racial comment?" Sirius joked, arms folded across his chest in mock anger.  
  
"It was if I wanted it to be," James said, casually.  
  
"Guys, your monkey grass is starting to get really annoying," Remus called. Having a plant climb all over him and poke at his ear would have annoyed him much sooner, had the two not been his best friends.  
  
"Sorry, bud," Sirius said, prompting the monkey grass off of him.  
  
"Hey, where'd Pete go?" James asked, scanning the greenhouse for signs of him.  
  
"He had to go up to the hospital wing," Remus answered.  
  
"Why?" This question came from Sirius.  
  
"The jaguar ivy wasn't feeling particularly friendly," Remus replied, wincing.  
  
"Whoa!" Sirius said, his eyes getting big. "Was there swelling? Blood? Poisoning?!"  
  
Remus stepped back slowly. "I worry about you sometimes."  
  
James laughed and snipped off part of the monkey grass, hearing the plant whimper and seeing Sirius pet it to make it hush up. He snipped off another part.  
  
"James! You're hurting the little critter. Cut lower with those things, will you?" Sirius said, indignantly.  
  
"Sorry," James said, trying to snip lower as the plant wriggled and squirmed in an obvious display of fear. "It for the thing's own good," he said.  
  
"Hubert is not a thing," Sirius said. "Hubert is a plant. A living creature."  
  
"God, Black, at least givie it a descent name." a boy commented, passing them. He casually snipped off a lock of Sirius' long black hair with his garden clippers.  
  
"Hold this," Sirius said, handing Hubert over to Remus again. He took great prde in his hair. "You're gonna pay for that you slimeball," he said to the Slytherin.  
  
Severus Snape laughed. "You're a trip, Black," he said.  
  
"Trip. Good idea, Snape," Sirius said. He spun around, his leg outstretched knocking Severus over. He also knocked himself down but caught his balance and held himself up with his hand.  
  
James, Remus, and even Frank Longbottom were among the people chanting, "Fight, fight, fight!"  
  
Snape got back up and shook his head, putting his fists before him, blocking his face. Sirius pushed himself up and kneed Snape in the groin.  
  
"Go screw a dragon, Snape," he said coldly.  
  
"What a tough descision faces me, then," Snape retorted, looking sly.  
  
"What descision?" Sirius questioned dubiously.  
  
"An actual dragon, or your girlfriend, who's quite like one," Snape said, a hating smile on his face.  
  
There were gasps and 'oooooh's from the spectators.  
  
Sirius lunged at Snape knocking him down, and managing to be punched in the stomach. Sirius and Snape tumbled and tussled like alley cats; the crowd made room for them. Sirius slammed his knuckles into the side of Severus' face, and twisted his ear mercilessly with the other hand.  
  
"What's all this? BOYS!" the professor shouted angrily, elbowing through the crowd.  
  
Sirius grinned at Snape, harshly. "Severus started it, Professor," he said.  
  
"He's lying!"  
  
"I have witnesses!"  
  
"Exhibit A," James interjected, gesturing to the garden shears and pieces of Sirius' hair.  
  
"Shut up, Potter," snarled Severus. "Nobody needs your opinion."  
  
"Detention for both of you, ten points from Slytherin, five from Gryffindor," Professor Sprout said.  
  
"Why less from-" Severus started.  
  
"It was a provoked fight, Mr. Snape. Do not argue with me. It would be a fruitless act, because I always win on such matters," Professor Sprout answered.  
  
Snape glowered, shooting mean looks at James, Sirius, and Remus. 


	3. Entre Lily

Lily frowned and seated herself beneath a large oak tree, fair skin sheilded from the unforgiving sunlight. She looked down at her feet without really looking at them. She had realized just the night before that she really had no best friend. She pulled her legs up to her chest and brushed her bright red, entirely straight hair out of her face. Biting her lip and burying her face in her arms, she felt the familiar sting of a cry rising behind her face to push itself out over her lower eyelid in the form of a tear. She murmured to herself, "They don't even know I'm in their year." She shook her head and wiped her eyes, standing up wityh a sniffle. "No time to cry, Lily. Save it for a funeral. Time to get to Transfiguration." She slung her overstuffed pack over her shoulder and began walking towards the castle, head down, eyes on her feet and the space six inches in front. The youngest Evans girl, quite predictably, bumped into and fell backward due to one Remus Joseph Lupin. She fell onto her back and thus onto her books, most of which promptly spilled from her pack. She winced as a corner of one dug into the spot just between her shoulders.  
  
"Oh, wow, I'm so sorry," Lupin said, kneeling down to offer her a hand. She'd been ready to spit her most venemous words at him, but when he looked truly sorry crouching there with his hand outstretched, she couldn't do it.  
  
"I can get up on my own, thanks," she mumbled. She turned and picked up her books, placing them strategically back in her bag. Then she heard it, that unforgiving laugh. That Sirius Black sort of laugh; taunting, teasing, corroding the self-confidence of a girl who didn't have much to begin with.  
  
"Hey, Sirius, shut up, okay?" Remus said. He shook his head at Sirius and mouthed 'please'. He turned his attention back to Lily. "Sorry my friends are such prats and are so...themselves."  
  
"It's okay. I'm getting used to it." She stood quickly, without so much as a social smile, and walked off, a few of the books in her arms.  
  
Lily stood alone in the bathroom listening to Moaning Myrtle and looking over the bruises on her back from her fall. She sighed and put her shirt back on, hiding the blue marks.  
  
"What reason have you to sigh?" Myrtle asked bitterly.  
  
"Nobody in Gryffindor even knows I'm a second year except for my dorm- mates who are so busy obsessing over their physical appearances and stupid Sirius Black and his gang that they probably don't notice me either."  
  
"Well..." Myrtle paused, trying to outdo the redhead. "Well, you dson't get teased for wearing glasses!"  
  
"That's because I don't, Myrtle," she pointed out.  
  
"Exactly!" Myrtle wailed, flushing herself and screaming.  
  
Lily rubbed her forehead and left the bathroom fully believing that God had cursed her several times over in Moaning Myrtle couldn't come up with a decent sob story to match hers. 


	4. A Secret in the Night

Author's Note: Hullo, loves. I'm gonna try my hardest to incorporate some English slang in here. The limited that I know, anyway. I'll post a mini- dictionary at the end of the chapter. This is the middle of fourth year, just to check up on Remus and Lily. 1974, if you care. The next chapter will check on the three remaining Marauders.  
  
Remus made an effort to keep his strides short when he walked along beside Lily. This walking with Lily business happened quite frequently, whether Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail were aware of it or not. Both of them had grown considerably. Remus was becoming one of the most charming boys in the school with his romantic nature, big band music, and the pictures he drew sometimes, focusing only on one part of a girl's face at a time. He had been wanting to start a collection of male versions of the lips, noses, eyes, ears, and chins. Of course, Sirius and James had accused him of being an arse-bandit and a bender, respectively. If James ever found out that the eyes he said he'd like to fill with some sort of "crazy lust or something" belonged to Emily Tuck, one of the most plain, homely girl in the school, Remus was sure he'd be dead.  
  
Lily had also grown into her skin. She had stretched out nicely in places the Marauders always took care not to discuss when they pointed out all her bad points, as the conversation might twist comfortably to her good bits. Her skin was clear and pale, her hair still long, red, and straight. There was an almost angry confidence in her eyes, in the way her mouth was set. There was a definite sense of satisfaction when she smirked at besting James or Sirius at something and a look of maternal patience when Peter ever approached to ask for help on his Defence Against the Dark Arts homework. Always he came to her with the same explanation, "They won't help me unless I pay them. And Remus is...ill." She often wondered about Remus' illness or his mother's. She had never pressed the subject, knowing it might be sensitive.  
  
At this particular point in time, he walked beside her with his sandy blonde hair tied back in a nice red ribbon at the base of his neck. His eyes were misted with worry and his forehead was wrinkled with something that resembled indecision. "Lily, I have to tell you something."  
  
Lily nodded. "Sure, Remus. Anything." She tucked her hands into the pockets of her jeans. The farther in she pushed her hands, the more they pushed up the black sleeves of her sweater. It was quite a compromise for her wrists if you can imagine and she soon became frustrated and merely crossed her arms, curling her hands to tuck them under the opposite arms.  
  
"Well, its a rather big something," Remus began. He scratched his nose and bit his lip, taking in deep breaths and sighing them out. With each sigh, the air in front of his face became a fog and his words were visibly heavy, but strained.  
  
"Big somethings are more fun to let loose than little somethings," Lily commented. Now here was a sight. Remus Joseph Lupin at a loss for words. Interesting. He was either going to tell her that his mother had passed away or that he was, for some incredibly strange reason, captivated by her. She kept her face sober, knowing the second conclusion she'd come to was highly improbable.  
  
"Lily, there's something wrong with me." He raised a hand when she began to protest. "No. Just let me get it all out. Lily, I was bitten by something when I was a child, no more than five or six. I was in the forest behind my house playing hide-and-seek with my little brother Rommy. He hid up a tree near the house and said he had his eyes closed so he wouldn't see me coming and start getting nervous. And I felt something grab me and it scratched hard on my back and I almost screamed, but whatever it was covered my mouth and bit my shoulder hard. Then it let go of me and ran. I started screaming and running and crying. Romulus got down out of his tree and followed me into the house. My mother worried and fretted over me for weeks. They found out the next month that, though I was small, I was capable of severe damage. My mother took Romulus out of the house and my father had to tie me down. Lily, I'm a werewolf." He glanced anxiously at her and she stopped in her tracks. He swallowed, quite afraid that she might scream and run. He gave a large sigh of relief when all she did was reach out and hug him.  
  
"Remus, I'm so sorry that happened to you. You know I wouldn't judge you for something like that. You know I'd never abandon you," she said softly to him, patting his back gently and whispering to him, for in the thick silence of a night so heavy with the magic of a school full of children, a whisper could carry so much more than sound. Lily's particular whisper was not of romance. that is to be made clear before I continue. Her whisper was that of a mother, of a young woman comforting and consoling and saying without really saying it that everything would be okay in the end.  
  
Remus laughed softly and closed his eyes. "Thank you," was all he said, but there was so much emotion in that single phrase of gratitude that it brought tears to the young girl's eyes and soon his own. After a few moments, she pulled away from him with a small sniffle.  
  
"Look at us," she said, laughing quietly and wiping her eyes. "Two crybabies and the greatest conversationalists the school has ever known and we haven't said a word for a full two minutes."  
  
Remus grinned. "That's got to be a first." He looked up at the moon and Lily followed his gaze. She hugged him again, bringing his cheek down closer to kiss it.  
  
"Don't ever let them judge you, Remus. If they judge you because of what you are, they obviously aren't worth your time because they clearly can't see what's inside of you. So make me a promise that you won't ever let them make you feel like you aren't normal," she said.  
  
"I'll try. That's all I can promise. That I'll make my best efforts."  
  
"Good enough."  
  
Arse-bandit: A derrogitory term for a homosexual male Bender: Yet another derrogitory term for a homosexual male, originating from the phrase 'gender bender' or possibly derrived from the idea of one who likes to bend over. 


End file.
